All That Glitters

by Mary Brady

  “I would have vetted him the minute she told me she was married,” Zach said as he turned away from the window and headed across the room to the kitchen sink for a glass of water, “but she asked me not to. She said she needed something in her life to be real.”

  “Did you check him, anyway?”

  “There was nothing I could do to check him that wouldn’t betray her trust.” He put the glass in the sink.

  “If she was embarrassed.”

  “If she was embarrassed, I’d like to think she’d still feel as though she could come to me.”

  Hunter still stood near the window with his arms crossed over the chest of his white shirt. His suit coat hung over the back of one of the dining-table chairs. “I have people investigating all possible circumstances, including her personal financial status and the status of her marriage.”

  “She adored her husband from the moment they met.”

  “She may need to protect him for some reason,” Hunter said, a look of consternation on his face.

  “How good is she at what she does?” Chief Montcalm asked from the middle of the room, halfway between Zach and Hunter.

  “She has the broadest understanding of the world monetary markets of anyone in the field. There are few investors who are more savvy or, and I can’t emphasize this enough, more honest.”

  “Then she’s being influenced. Is it possible for her to cover any missteps she may have made?” the chief asked.

  “If anyone could cover her financial tracks, it would be Carla Blankenstock,” Zach answered.

  “But as transparent as things can be made these days, that’s how deeply covert they can be. I wish I had suspected something...”

  “Why would you have known?” Hunter asked joining the other two.

  “The only answer is, I should have. I made a promise to the people I talked into investing with Hale and Blankenstock.” Zach grimaced. “About Carla’s husband, after they met, I never saw Carla at any of the social events without him nearby. He traveled with her and he spent many a day in her office. She hired him as a consultant, though I left his job up to her. Perhaps, a bad idea in retrospect.”

  The chief’s brows furrowed for a moment. “We need someone to speak with her husband.”

  “I can do it,” Hunter volunteered.

  “We met a couple of times,” Zach said. “I can set up a meeting between the two of us.”

  “Neither of you are the gender I was thinking of. Hunter, you can’t create that kind of conflict of interest without a judge throwing your defense out of court and possibly hitting you with an obstruction charge. Zach, you need to stay clear of any sign of impropriety.”

  “I still think I should do it,” Zach countered.

  “I have someone better in mind,” the chief huffed. “You can’t leave Bailey’s Cove. The FBI came for you today. I convinced them we need you right now. Told them I’d bring you in myself when we could afford to let you go.”

  Zach shifted his gaze to see the chief studying him.

  The door slammed and was followed a few moments later by hesitant footsteps on the stairs to the loft.

  Most of the few people who had reason to come up to the tail end of Sea Crest Hill road were in the room with him now.

  Addy...

  A sharp kick started Zach’s heart racing. The ache surprised him and he retreated to the fireplace.

  There was a knock on the inside door.

  “I’ll get it,” Hunter said.

  He slid on his jacket—out of habit, Zach thought—and answered the door.

  Hunter scanned her as if looking for a weapon and then slowly stepped aside. Control the pace of an event and you could control the event. Hunter Morrison knew that one and so would she.

  She pushed the hood of the coat off her wet hair and casually let her gaze sweep the room. She looked beautiful even with matted hair and raindrops for makeup.

  When she spotted him standing beside the fireplace, she didn’t alter her expression, though she’d know things had completely changed in the loft on Sea Crest Hill.

  He let the feelings war inside him about her being there. She had trudged up the hill in the rain, looked cold, wet and tired. He wanted to send the other men away and to sweep her into his arms and restore the pink to her lips, dusky with the cold.

  The three of them stared at her. The chief sized her up, and Hunter looked as if he was coming to some aha moment and Zach didn’t like the other two men’s reactions at all.

  “What?” Addy asked as she shifted her gaze from one of them to the next.

  “What do you know about files from the offices of Hale and Blankenstock?”

  She stopped in the middle of the room and turned to face the chief who had asked the question.

  “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

  A standard dodge designed to keep the name of a source concealed, Zach thought. The chief recognized the diversion for what it was and didn’t ask the question again.

  Addy shoulders dropped and she stepped up and answered. “I have a source with documents, emails, etc. incriminating Zach.”

  Her gaze locked to his, she kept her voice steady as she delivered the condemnation, giving no indication of what she was thinking.

  He held his face expressionless as well when she took a few steps toward where he stood. She stopped as if rethinking the move and then started again. When she was only a foot away she looked up at him.

  The rest of the world faded away. He didn’t care who was in the room. He didn’t care about Hale and Blankenstock or the FBI. The spot on the glistening hardwood floor upon which he and Addy Bonacorda stood was all there was.

  “I don’t believe you did anything wrong.” She spoke the words as she looked into his eyes as if searching for a reaction.

  His mouth opened. He started to protest. Her complete faith in him was not what he wanted. If she hated him, believed everything her source had about him, she’d walk away.

  Even peripheral involvement with him could taint her as a source, especially in light of Afghanistan.

  Then she sucked in a breath, nodded once and turned to address Chief Montcalm. “Sir, my source is reliable, but I have not seen the documents.”

  “The FBI has them.” The chief studied her.

  “I—um—know.” She faltered for a moment and put a hand to her forehead and moved away. After a moment she spun on her heel. “Whatever I can do to help the situation, I’m here, I’m available.”

  The chief looked satisfied and Hunter circumspect.

  The chief stepped forward. “I have something in mind that may interest you, Ms. Bonacorda.”

  “No! You don’t know whether or not he’s dangerous,” Zach countered.

  “Who’s dangerous?” Addy asked quickly. There was almost an eager look on her face and Zach wanted nothing more than to whisk her to someplace safe...from herself.

  At the same time he knew with absolute certainty she would not leave the controversy behind.

  “Carla Blankenstock’s husband,” Hunter replied. “None of us can speak with him without interfering with or obstructing justice.”

  “And why are we interested in him?”

  Zach felt any control he had slipping away.

  “One theory is he’s the motivation behind what Mrs. Blankenstock has done to Hale and Blankenstock,” the chief answered.

  “He seems to have her on a tight chain,” Zach said. He heard the resignation in his own voice. He had to admit Carla had done the deed, committed the crime and she had to go down for it along with her husband.

  “I’ll do it.”

  Zach’s heart seized at the thought of Addy in danger.

  “No. Not for me. Not for Hale and Blankenstock.”

  Addy turne
d to him. “We can meet in public. If I get him to think he is going to get to further his wife’s scheme to have you convicted instead of her, he’ll jump at the chance.”

  “If he has the high opinion of himself I think he does, he might not be able to keep from dropping hints,” Chief Montcalm added.

  “Is he dangerous?” Hunter stepped in.

  “Caution should be used around any criminals,” the chief added.

  “Chief, you can’t ask her to do this.” Zach had to try.

  She took a step toward him. “I’m volunteering.”

  “Not for me.” He repeated the words, certain she would not listen to him and maybe that was one of the reasons he loved her so much.

  She stood tall and faced him. “Ego boy, this is ego girl you’re speaking to. If the story is big enough, I jump in with both feet and all fingers.”

  Zach leaned forward as the fury hammered a warning inside his head. “Don’t do this for me.”

  “Sir, I’m in,” Addy said sounding as confident as he was sure she felt.

  Zach had to try one more time. “There are other ways to get to Carla’s husband.”

  She held up a hand to his protest and turned toward the chief. “You’ll make sure the men in black have my back won’t you, Chief?”

  “Why can’t the Bureau do the job?” His words left his tongue feeling like lethal daggers. It had been a long time since he’d lost this much control. “They must have someone undercover, someone with training to handle the likes of him.”

  “There are several reasons why it should be me. I already have the credibility. As well as the Bureau can build a backstory for their operative, they can’t alter the subject’s memory to recall something as big as the Afghani debacle. Two, freedom of the press. They won’t stop reporters from talking to Carla Blankenstock’s husband. I don’t have to follow all their rules and, well...” She grinned up at him. “And I’m very good at what I do.”

  Zach’s eyebrows drew together as he remembered she was good, very good at other things.

  His whole body reacted to the sudden switch and he had to take a series of back steps to keep from dragging her into his arms.

  Addy closed her eyes for a moment and he could see she felt the same.

  “You realize—” she addressed him alone “—I’ll do this because I have to, for myself.”

  Zach had already fought longer than was rational. “I want to be there.”

  “Not possible,” the chief said. “I have to turn you over to the FBI if you leave here. I can’t let you sneak past the roadblocks, and don’t even think about flying out.”

  “What do you want me to get the man to tell me?” Addy asked.

  Zach bristled at the feeling of utter helplessness. He wanted to bundle Addy up and take her away...

  ...and he was equally certain she would not thank him for doing so.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  THE CHIEF HAD departed in his squad. Hunter had taken Addy back to the Three Sisters. They had left him alone to stay put, to suffer the indignities of helplessness.

  “Take only the two of you to operate the Zodiac and make sure it’s seaworthy,” Zach said to the captain and chief maintenance officer for Hale and Blankenstock’s yacht. “I don’t care if we set sail with her listing heavily. I only need to get out far enough to have a head start. I’ll arrange for a pick up as soon after dawn as possible and you can bring her back to Bailey’s Cove or keep going to the shipyard in Bar Harbor to get the repairs finished.”

  “What’s this about?”

  “Nothing. You know absolutely nothing except that most billionaires are slightly unbalanced.”

  “But, sir—”

  “And we pay very well.”

  “Yes, sir. We’ve been working on her, like you asked, since the winds let up. Give me six hours, if the navigation systems pass their last test, we’ll be seaworthy, and the Zodiac is in top shape as ya know.”

  “As I know.” The yacht’s captain loved the vessel as if it was his child. He and his repair crew were some of the select group allowed in past the Bailey’s Cove blockade. It had nearly killed the man to have been in Massachusetts greeting a new grandchild while the yacht weathered the storm.

  “I’ll meet you at the dock in six hours.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Zach had six hours to spend. Five and a half of them he’d spend finding out as much as he could about Carla Blankenstock’s husband, including, if he could, how the man treated Carla and what Addy might face when she met with him.

  He had to admit Addy could take care of herself. As much as he wanted to protect her, she would always be an investigative journalist first. While she did what she had to do, interviewing Carla’s husband, he planned to speak with Carla no matter what it took.

  Addy would be safe. She had to be safe.

  He leaned back in the chair where he had first explored her supple body, taken what she had offered and given her everything he had in return, where the sound of her joy had made music he would never forget.

  She had to be safe.

  * * *

  SEEING ZACH’S FACE AGAIN, how much he cared for her, had made it harder than ever to walk away. She was certain he’d take the hit before he let anyone else be harmed by the scheme perpetrated at Hale and Blankenstock. Her heart fractured even more when he refused to let her stay close to him, had in fact, sent her away from him.

  In her room in the Three Sisters, she pulled the soft chenille spread up under her chin and called her sister.

  “Hey, Adriana, some of us go to bed at a civilized hour.” Savanna’s voice came out croaky and full of sleep.

  “You could have told me when I called you the first time, Savanna, that you had hard copies of the files. You said you never had them.”

  “We were getting along so well, Addy. I thought I’d have time to tell you in person, you know, when your charming little nieces were sitting on your lap or something.” Savanna sounded like their mother, always looking to subvert conflict. Maybe that wasn’t all bad.

  “You couldn’t hate me,” Savanna continued, “when those cute faces I created were giving you the ogle eyes of adoration. How was I supposed to know it might be important sooner rather than later, that you were out there falling in love with the enemy?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You know that reporter Jacko something or other.”

  “Wilson.”

  “Ya, that’s him. He says you’re up in Maine cozying up to Zachary Hale.”

  “I hate that man.”

  “Hale? Then it isn’t true?”

  Let her sister make of that statement what she wanted to. “I’m in Maine trying to figure out what happened at Hale and Blankenstock.”

  “Don’t we know what happened?”

  “There are credible people here backing Hale.” Addy was sure she had never met men more upstanding then Chief Montcalm and Hunter Morrison.

  “You mean lying for him.”

  “Not these people.”

  “It’s true. You are up there, well, he said cavorting with the enemy. You really gotta see his blog.”

  “Jacko the Hacko puts out stuff that’s just this side of libel. He gets a lot of readers that way and I can’t knock that, but I’ve been busy. And I called to—”

  “Chew me out.”

  “To—yeah—I did, and to tell you I’m coming back to Boston. I’m leaving at first light.”

  “Yippee,” Savanna squeaked quietly. “Will you stay for at least a week?”

  “I was there for several months last time.”

  “But that was before we were friends.”

  “I’ll come and see you and the girls, but what I need to know from you is how did you know the
FBI didn’t already have the files you stole copies of?”

  “Mr. Blankenstock—”

  “Not his name.”

  “It’s what everybody calls him. Anyway, he called me and asked if I’d seen any of the records incriminating Zachary Hale.”

  “And you told him yes.”

  “Sure, I said a few.”

  “Did he ask you for them?”

  “He did not. He’s a good guy. He didn’t want them for himself at all. He didn’t want any of the credit. He just wants that Hale guy to get what he has coming, so he wanted to make sure I’d turn them into the FBI.”

  “Of course he did.” He had called to prompt a witness to come forward with the false information he and Carla had planted. If the material came directly from him, they would be suspect.

  “I’m very concerned for you, Addy. You’re up there with the enemy and you could get into trouble.”

  “You sound like Mom, except she’d never say that to me.”

  “Well, I am worried.”

  “You should be, but not for the reasons you think. Did you hand over all the files?”

  “I may have held back a few.”

  “You are crazier than I thought.”

  “They’re just unofficial documents, but they’re originals. Stuff where Hale talks about what Carla has to do in order to support their biggest client, only he puts client in quotes.” Savanna took a breath. “When you get here, I can show them to you.”

  “Why, why would you hold back from the Federal Bureau of Investigation?”

  Savanna paused. “I was thinking they might be worth money.”

  “That’s illegal, Savanna.” Carla’s husband would have been planning on her sister handing over all the files he and Carla had planted.

  “It’s not as bad as what Hale did. Mr. Blankenstock said he was calling all the employees who might help his wife before Mr. Hale buried her with his lies. He says he’s going to help Mrs. Blankenstock get back as much of our money as possible. I might get some or all of it.” She sounded so happy, but Addy knew if it were up to Mr. Blankenstock, there would be no money to give back.